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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYSJuly 16, 2019Tom HermanArlington, Texas THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Texas Coach, Tom Herman. Coach, welcome to the Media Days and your thoughts about the upcoming season? TOM HERMAN: Not a whole lot to say. We've had a great offseason, pretty uneventful, which is always a good thing in college football. Our guys are getting bigger. They're getting faster. They're getting stronger. They're becoming more cohesive. Obviously maybe the big news is that we broke ground on a $175 million south end zone renovation which will not only enhance our game day atmosphere for our fans but provide our players with some incredible state-of-the-art facilities, hopefully the best in the country. Injury update, the only one of significance is Al'Vonte Woodard, redshirt freshman receiver broke his foot, had a Jones fracture this summer, earlier this summer and we're hoping to have him back midway through training camp, maybe, you know, as late as week one or two. But he should be able to contribute at some point in the season. Other than that, we're really healthy. We're really excited. I think the buy-in level is extremely high right now and it's a really fun group to coach. Questions? Q. Tom, winning now, the mentality that coaches have to have, college football can almost be a zero sum game, especially at a place like where you're at. Winning now mentality versus having patience and building a culture, can you address that and how you have approached that with a little bit of patience in mind? TOM HERMAN: Yeah, I've been blessed with an unbelievable administration, and I really do believe that games are won or lost by players and coaches. Championships are won by administrations. We have a championship administration in Chris Del Conte, our athletic director, and Greg Fenves as president. I think both of them understood where this program was when we took it over. We're probably a bit ahead of schedule, to be honest with you, in terms of getting us back to consistently being where we expect Texas to be. But I do think there is an element of patience. I lean on Coach [Dabo] Swinney at Clemson quite a bit. I think it took him, what, seven years, something like that to win his first national championship. Coach [Mack] Brown at Texas was the same. I'm not saying we're setting the bar at seven years, but what I'm sayin' is we want to win championships and we want to win 'em now. But we were brought here to rebuild a program and that takes time. We weren't here to just have a really good season in year two. We were here to rebuild a program that's capable of sustaining success and we feel like we're on our way there. Q. Coach, Zach Shackelford has been a staple on your offensive line since you walked on to the campus. What are you looking from him this season and what's different about him now than when you first got to Texas? TOM HERMAN: He's bigger and stronger. I can tell you that. He's healthier. He went through some ankle issues early when we got here. He is a tremendous leader and you look no further than his family. I believe his father, two-parent home, father is a Chaplain in the military, so very disciplined young man that is probably, you know, him and Sam Ehlinger are probably our two most vocal leaders offensively. We're proud to have him. We think he is as good a center as there is in the country. He's brilliant when it comes to making the calls. The center is kind of the quarterback of the offensive line and he's really the glue that holds that group together. Q. Coach, last year the offense was often defined by having Andrew Beck who could block a defensive end one play and then motion out the next and get Jordan Humphrey motioned up on a linebacker. But both are now gone, so who will define the offense in 2019? TOM HERMAN: I don't know who will define the offense. I think that's a very subjective statement that you made in terms of the offense being defined by Andrew Beck and what he was able to do. I think our offense will be very similar. We feel like Cade Brewer is an excellent replacement for Andrew Beck. Obviously Andrew was a two-time captain and a First-Team All-Conference player. So those are big shoes to fill and the same with Humphrey, enormous shoes to fill. We feel like our depth and talent at receiver is such that we feel that is a position of strength for us. Then we feel like Cade Brewer, you know, Cade started most of the season as a true freshman having played wide receiver in high school and boom you get to college and you're playing tight end at whatever he was at that time, probably 220 pounds, now he's 250 pounds and can do a lot of things similarly to Andrew. Q. Coach, a follow-up about the tight end position. Why and how is it so important to the offense? Andrew, I think a lot of people may be overlooked, I know the staff didn't overlook, but his play and contribution last year was pretty important to the offense, correct? TOM HERMAN: Extremely important, yeah. We define our offense as a pro spread. We're going to run NFL concepts in the run game in terms of inside zone and power and counter. We're going to run NFL concepts in the passing game, NFL concepts in our protections. The only difference is we're going to do it from the shotgun. And we're going to make defenses have to defend a mobile quarterback. So I think, you know, we're not one of those fun and gun, chuck and duck, whatever you want to call it, four wide receivers, throw it every snap and run a draw here and there. We want to be a power running team, and we're slowly building that. Having a dominant tight end certainly helps along the way. Q. It's been said since 2011 since Texas has played Texas A&M, did you want to see this rivalry renewed, and if so what needs to happen for this game to be played again? TOM HERMAN: I would love to see the rivalry renewed. I think it's great for college football. It's great for Texas. There's plenty of other intrastate rivals that are in different conferences that find a way to play each other, Clemson-South Carolina, Georgia-Georgia Tech, Florida-Florida State, Iowa-Iowa State, the list goes on and on. The second part of your question, I don't know what needs to happen because I don't know what happened in 2011. I wasn't in those meetings, but I do think that, you know, we've got some really smart people in both universities administration. We could find a way to make that game happen. I think it would be great for Texas fans. We don't play a historic rival at home anymore, ever. We've got to drive to Dallas to play our lone remaining history rival and for our players. I would much rather know that every other year our longest nonconference road game is going to be two hours down the road instead of getting on a play to Los Angeles to play a night game in Pacific time or flying to Columbus, Ohio or flying to Gainesville, Florida. To answer your question, certainly would love to see it. I think it would be great for recruiting and great for the families of our players to be able to drive to a nonconference road game. But the second part of your question, I have no idea what needs to happen to make that happen. Q. Tom, when you heard Baker Mayfield and Terry Bradshaw's comments, were you excited over the moon, like this is the best thing that could have happened for someone to crap on your quarterback like that? TOM HERMAN: I don't know if excited was the first emotion. But, you know, I heard it. I would be lying to you if I told you I don't know what you're talking about. I certainly do, but it's irrelevant, what other people say about us and our program. It doesn't really faze us. So the irrelevancy of it was at an all-time high. I do know, you know, our guys file certain things away. We had a bowl game recently where the other team was very disrespectful and that gave us motivation leading up to the bowl game. Sam [Ehlinger] loves to play with a chip on his shoulder, and I'm sure he will use this to crank it up a notch. It is, again, it's pretty irrelevant in terms of how it affects our program. We're worried about our program. Q. If you set Sam [Ehlinger] aside for a second, what are you most excited about with the rest of the offense? TOM HERMAN: Well, the development of the run game, certainly, I think, our offensive line if we stay healthy has as good of a chance to be as good as we have here in our three years here. The tailback position, Keaontay Ingram, this is a true freshman that rushed over 700 yards, limited carries because he missed games due to injury and he had another good player in Tre Watson playing with him in the same spot and he's also put on 15, 20 pounds of, you know, what we call armor, to hopefully, because that's a violent position, one that takes a pretty good beating. He understood that he needs to pack on that muscle to try to stay healthy throughout the season, and then I think the second year in the system he's become a lot more patient. I think he understands also when a run is blocked for four yards, go get the four yards, don't try to hit a home run every time. And then the emergence of Jordan Whittington has been remarkable. I've never seen in my 22 years of coaching a young man having never played a certain position, even in high school, to come in and say, hey, kid, you're going to play tailback for us at least for this season, if not longer and say yes, sir and he took to it like a fish to water. He's a natural at it. We're really excited about him as well. Q. You say you're going to win with great defenses, obviously y'all had some struggles there last year. How much closer are you getting to becoming that type? And I would ask you to give an update from my question last year if you had a different answer. TOM HERMAN: The answer would be the same. It would just be with a lot less thought. But we have some. Not all of our 85 scholarship players are at championship level yet, but we certainly have enough that if we play our best and we develop the way that we think we can, that we think we can compete for a championship, certainly. And, yeah, we need to make improvements on defense. We have recruited very well on that side of the ball. We have developed in the weight room very well. We're going to be young. There is no secret to that. But young and talented is better than young and not talented. I can tell you that. So we've got to find a way, too, to get the best 11 guys on the field. I think that's important as well, regardless of what position they play. We feel good. We feel like Todd Orlando is the cream of the crop when it comes to defensive coordinators in this league and I have no doubt that we will get better simply by an infusion of talent and another year of development in our system. Q. I asked you during your first year if this challenge was tougher than you first anticipated and you said, yes, but the improvement has been there. How much easier is it now to get that buy-in now that they've put those wins on the board as opposed to you telling them they could happen? TOM HERMAN: It's imperative. I would never call anything we do easy or easier, but it is imperative. When you demand the things that we demand of our players and we talk all the time about the price of a championship being set by the football guys and it's the same for any football team in the country, and are you willing to pay that price. Our guys definitely have been, but the results were a bit hit or miss that first year. So for this past season to have those tangible results and, you know, to beat your rival in the Cotton Bowl and to be able to have the Golden Hat in Austin for a year at least and to be able to win a New Year's Six bowl game I think and all the victories in between definitely makes the ability for a young man to buy-in much easier, for sure. Q. Coach, with the change in the recruiting calendar, early signing days, spring officials, how has that altered your plan for recruiting and are you in favor of that newer schedule? TOM HERMAN: We're at the point now where after two years from now I think we all know December is not the early Signing Day it's the Signing Day, and February is the late Signing Day, if you will, because so many kids are going to sign in December. Am I in favor of it? Not really. But it is what it is. How has it changed? Obviously there's quite a bit of strategy that goes into trying to figure out when a young man is going to make his decision as to whether you want to bring him in on a spring official visit or a fall official visit or a December official visit or a January official visit. So there is quite a bit of strategy involved there. All it's done is accelerated the recruiting process. What December used to be in terms of commitment season is now June and July and August. So we've got to adjust our way of thinking and kind of push the calendar back and you find yourself we're going to sign the class of 2020 here in December and we are heavily, heavily recruiting the class of 2021 and quite a bit of 2022 kids as well that have played varsity. It just as sped everything up. I think you're going to see probably a few more recruiting misses because you're offering guys so many more guys after their sophomore season just to be able to recruit them that it's probably not fair to your program because you haven't seen those young men really develop physically and emotionally and from a maturity standpoint, but the old saying, you've got to do business the way business is done. This is the new landscape of college football, and it's our job to adapt to it. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks very much. Best of luck for the season. TOM HERMAN: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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